The research was performed using the W Environment in Steady-State Tokamak (WEST), operated by France’s Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). Grant Bodner, a postdoctoral researcher at PPPL who was the lead author of the research paper reporting the results in Nuclear Fusion said, “We need a way to deposit boron coatings without turning off the tokamaks’ magnetic field, and that’s what the powder dropper allows us to do.” These unwanted impurities could cool the plasma and quench the fusion reactions.
Boron partly shields the tungsten from the plasma and prevents the tungsten from leaking into the plasma it also absorbs any stray elements like oxygen that may be in the plasma from other sources. The scientists wanted to confirm they can use this process to apply boron to tungsten parts because bare tungsten walls can hurt plasma performance if the plasma damages the tungsten.īecause of its high melting point, tungsten is increasingly used in tokamaks to help components withstand the intense heat of the fusion process. The research showed a powder dropper can successfully drop boron powder into high-temperature plasma within tokamaks that have parts made of a heat-resistant material known as tungsten. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) confirmed they can drop boron powder into a tokamak fusion reactor.
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